The large purse was missing and was never found. That woman, and the custodian, found Assad on the floor, her skull fractured and her head bleeding.Īssad died four days after she was injured. No one other than Assad and Williams saw what happened.īut a woman in a stall heard a thud, and Williams left, joining Townsel in making a beeline for the exit. Afaf Assad went into the bathroom, followed by Williams as Townsel played lookout, at one point blocking a custodian from entering. 31, 2019, at about 7:30 a.m., Williams and Townsel were in the casino near Temecula when Afaf Assad entered with her husband of 59 years, 93-year-old Youanness, on her right arm and a bright pink purse containing about $1,000 for gambling on her left. Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin did not seek the death penalty. There was no such reaction from Williams.

A couple gasped and one was doubled over. That’s how her life ended, not with her family and friends around her.”Īs Freer sentenced Williams, some of the approximately 15 family members and friends wiped tears and sobbed. A casino bathroom, where people go to urinate and defecate and do God knows what else. “She was left on a bathroom floor with her head exploding. Didn’t deserve to be killed, violently murdered in a casino,” Freer said before sentencing. “The idea that either Miss Williams or Miss Townsel is not responsible for the death of a human being is laughable,” Freer said. Williams’ statement did not appear to move Superior Court Judge Timothy F. “My father is without his wife and partner and is isolated and alone in a way we cannot begin to understand … We seek not vengeance but there needs to be a reckoning for their heinous act,” Assad said.

… Part of me died in that hospital room with her. “I still can’t believe my mother was the victim of a violent crime. “This has been a long, painful journey through the criminal court justice system,” Assad’s daughter, Mary Assad, said in the victim impact statement she read to the court. Their sentences for robbery and elder abuse were stayed under the legal tenet that those crimes were part of a single act, the murder of Afaf Assad.

Kimesha Monae Williams, 39, and Candace Tai Townsel, 42, who both have long rap sheets for theft, were convicted in February at Southwest Justice Center in French Valley of murder, robbery and elder abuse, along with a sentencing enhancement of committing a robbery during a murder, after a monthlong trial. Two Moreno Valley women were sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday, April 21, for killing an 84-year-old Long Beach woman who was found unconscious with a cracked skull on the floor of a Pechanga Resort Casino bathroom in 2019.

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